172 



SCTENGE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 159 



critical inspection of all reputed antiquities bear- 

 ing the marks of these un-American methods of 

 manufacture. 



If the methods are questionable, the spirit is 

 more so. True native art is consistent : each part 

 bears an intelligible relation to all other parts. 

 It will be seen by reference to my illustration that 

 these vases are not even imitations of genuine 

 work, but compositions made up of unrelated 

 parts (derived, may be, from ancient art), and 

 thrown together without rhyme or reason. Fraud 

 is stamped upon every contour, and written in 

 every line. W. H. Holmes. 



EAST GREENLAND ESKIMO. 



Anthropologists have been waiting with great 

 interest the information which Lieutenant Holm 

 has to convey regarding the wild Eskimo of East 

 Greenland, only recently known, and among whom 

 he was the first civilized man to penetrate. He 

 remained among them last winter ; and an exhibi- 

 tion has just been made at Copenhagen of the eth- 

 nological objects which were procured from them. 

 These people live about the bay of Augmagsalik. 

 In the various settlements there were, in the winter 

 of 1884-85, 548 souls, of whom 413 are situated 

 near the above bay, and the rest on the coast be- 

 tween Fingmiamiut and Eernstorff fiord. There 

 are 247 males and 301 females, who possess 142 

 kayaks and 33 umiaks, or large skin boats. The 

 language is the same as that of the west coast ; 

 but the voices of the east coast people are more 

 soft and agreeable. Their habit is erect, the face 

 characteristic, the nose more prominent than with 

 the other Eskimo. Their religion and legends 

 agree exactly with those of the western coast. 



They wear dressed skin in summer, fur clothing 

 in winter. Their boots are double ; and in winter 

 both inside socks and boots are made of fur on the 

 inner side. Bear-skins are the most prized. 

 Caps are made of white or blue fox-skin with the 

 tail left hanging behind. Pretty embroidery and 

 inlaid party-colored fur are in use, as is a sort of 

 wooden shade against sun and rain. Combs of 

 musk-ox horn are cut out with shark's teeth, and 

 used to confine the hair, which is often knotted on 

 top of the head. Clothing is only worn out of 

 doors ; within the huts the women wear a breech 

 clout, while the others are entirely naked up to 

 their fourteenth year, when the boys are given a 

 pair of breeches as a sign of maturity. The 

 greatest desire of the women is to have a son, and 

 a marriage is not regarded as complete until tin; 

 wife lias become a mother. In order that the 

 child may be a boy, the women are made to dance 

 in a way to make a figure of eight on the floor: this, 



if rigorously followed, should determine the sex of 

 the expected infant. As in north-west America, 

 boys are often married to old women ; but the tie 

 does not hold unless children are the result. Some 

 men have two wives, so as to have two rowers in 

 their boat. Only one unmarried woman was met 

 with. The men frequently exchange wives ; and 

 the possession of male children is considered excel- 

 lent luck. w T hether a woman be married or not. 

 Salutation is by rubbing noses. Men of sixty 

 years of age are very rare. When an individual 

 is seriously ill, he consents, if his relatives request 

 it, to end his sufferings by throwing himself into 

 the sea. It is rare that a sick person is put to 

 death, except in cases of disordered intellect. The 

 dead whose ancestors have perished in the sea are 

 thrown into the sea. Others are interred, or laid 

 on land and their bodies covered with stones. 

 With them are put then- most precious treasures. 

 The friends and relatives express grief in different 

 ways, — howling, weeping, and so on, that the 

 soul of the dead man be not grieved by neglect. 

 If the deceased bore the name of a thing or ani- 

 mal, the name is no longer used, which causes 

 some confusion in the language. 



They know very little of fishing. Even the sal- 

 mon are taken with a spear. Their weapons are 

 arrows, lances, and harpoons, pointed with bone 

 or iron. The latter is obtained by traffic with the 

 southern natives, or from wreckage. They make 

 knives and needles of it, as well as arrow-points. 

 Needles and beads are much in request. Collars 

 are made for dress occasions by fastening fish 

 vertebrae on strips of dressed intestine, as on a 

 ribbon. They are very ingenious in wood-carving, 

 and their wooden articles are ornamented with 

 inlaid bits of white bone or stone. They carve 

 representations of parts of the coast in wood ; and 

 among the articles brought home by Lieutenant 

 Holm was a collection representing, in wood, the 

 parts of the adjacent coast. These carvings are so 

 good, that the members of the expedition recog- 

 nized from one of them an island which they had 

 not previously seen. Toys are also carved with 

 -rent accuracy and neatness. The children have 

 and dress dolls, play with toy bears, sledges, etc., 

 — all well executed. 



Fire is obtained by means of the fire-drill, and 

 is caught on the dry moss which serves for wicks 

 in their great stone lamps, which both heat and 

 cook for the household. 



There is a good deal of driftwood thrown on 

 this coast. The autumn and early winter arc 

 mild, in the present case above 37° F. It was 

 only in t lie month of February that the sea became 

 ice-bound : it remained so until the end of June. 

 In general the coast is free for navigation during 



